Chapter VI: The Life of Poverty

21. All the sisters and brothers zealously follow the poverty and humility of Our Lord Jesus Christ. “Though rich” beyond measure (2 Co 8:9). He emptied Himself for our sake (Phil 2:7) and with the holy virgin, His mother, Mary, He chose poverty in this world. Let them be mindful that they should have only those goods of this world which, as the apostle says, “having something to eat and something to wear, with these we are content (1 Tim 6:8). Let them particularly beware of money. And let them be happy to live among the outcast and despised, among the poor, the weak, the sick, the unwanted, the oppressed, and the destitute.

22. The truly poor in spirit, following the example of the Lord, live in this world as pilgrims and strangers (cf 1 P 2:1). They neither appropriate nor defend anything as their own. So excellent is this most high poverty that it makes us heirs and rulers of the kingdom of heaven. It makes us materially poor, but rich in virtue (cf James 2:5). Let this poverty alone be our portion because it leads to the land of the living (Ps 141:6). Clinging completely to it let us, for the sake of Our Lord Jesus Christ, never want anything else under heaven.